


Ron, Summer of 1996

by JessaLRynn



Series: Glimpses [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Falling In Love, Introspection, POV Male Character, Romance, Written Pre-Deathly Hallows, old story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:17:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7480365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessaLRynn/pseuds/JessaLRynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ron loves Hermione - a picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ron, Summer of 1996

Ron Weasley loves Hermione. Most of the time, it seems that he has always loved her. He distinctly remembers meeting her for the first time on the train when they were both eleven, but it always feels strange to him to realize this, because it seems to Ron that the length of time is much too short for a love that feels like this. Most of the time, he can almost believe that he has loved her all his life, that he lay in his cradle on that first March morning and became the love, then and there, of the bushy haired baby of a pair of Muggle dentists he has only one thing in common with.  
There are some moments when he believes he loves her best. Hermione is a talented witch, a smart girl who learns everything she reads and reads everything she lays her hand to, and there was one moment when she was, to anyone's eyes, the most beautiful girl in the school. But the girl in those special moments is peripheral, aspects of the girl Ron really loves, and limited aspects at that.

Someday, when they are very old, if ever they live that long, Hermione will lean on his shoulder and look at him and whisper in that happy little voice of hers that she can't believe it turned out this way. And Ron will look down at her, frankly astonished, and see all the love that she has always held for him, right there in her eyes, and his heart will melt again, and he will fall in love with her yet one more time. And he will say that he can't imagine how it could have turned out any other way, and he will be telling the absolute truth.

Because to Ron, nothing has ever seemed so normal as loving Hermione. It seems sometimes as if she made a wish and he sprang from it. He drives her mad, every chance he gets, and there is very little about him that Hermione does not find a way to be dissatisfied with. But all the same, she is never so happy as when she is arguing with someone, and she is never so pleased with herself as she is when she is right, and Ron provides her ample opportunity to argue and be right every single day that he is with her.

They have been apart a grand total of six months since the day they met, and that is counting every day Hermione spent petrified in the hospital wing. That is counting every fight they had where they ignored each other successfully for more than 24 hours. That is also counting all the summer days they spent together waiting for Harry, worrying over Harry, hoping for the best for Harry.

Harry is the only person who has ever seen their love lying out in the open, with no disguises and no regrets. It is a nod to Harry's loveless upbringing that such moments do not embarrass him at all, since he doesn't recognize them as anything other than precious. He could tell them, of course, if they asked him (which they would be afraid to do) that it is the way they look, rather than anything they say or anything they do - it is the accidental intimacy of their unguarded expressions that could tell anyone who looked in their direction the whole story. Harry knows that he is privileged in this regard, and someday he will tell them, but not while they are still missing the moments more often than catching them.

But there is one moment Ron doesn't miss. Later on, he would look back on that moment, and wonder what he was thinking. In that single moment, he knows his love for her is eternal and irrevocable, and he knows he wants to love her like this, that he wants to spend every day with this. Later on, that adult knowledge will slip away and he will make a childish mistake. But the knowledge will reassert itself, as it has always done, since the moment she first gave herself a cat's tail, or perhaps since she forgot about a spell for fire, or maybe so far back as the troll. Maybe even the moment she rattled off her breathless autobiography at them on that first train ride. Maybe before that, maybe always. He belongs to her, and nothing changes that.

Hermione has just gotten her O.W.L. scores. The look on her face is precious - it's the expression of a first runner up, as ecstatic as one who is utterly crushed can possibly look. He sees this, and knows that, on anyone else, that look would mean only passing scores, but nothing special. On Hermione, he knows, because he knows her, that she has been terrified, since the moment she handed in her last exam, that knowing everything might somehow not be enough, that all her reading has somehow gone wrong, and she doesn't actually know anything at all. She has also been convinced, because there is still that part of her that knows she knows everything, that all her exams should work out better than most people could even hope for.

So he takes her report from her, knowing what he will see, and upon finding it, he announces that she got the perfect Outstanding scores, except in one course - the one she always has problems in, because book knowledge must be backed by strength under pressure, which Hermione has, but not in that form. And he looks down at her, and she is looking up at him, begging him to understand, and he does understand, and what he says lets her know that she is just being silly - that he is very proud, that no one could possibly have expected less - or achieved more - than what she has done. Her eyes are wide and deep and vulnerable, and Harry is laughing because he knows her and knows what this has meant to her. But what Ron is doing is seeing Hermione - and only Hermione - in one of her "true self" moments, without her masks, without any attempts to disguise, and he is loving her, as he has perhaps always done.

But it is in moments like this that he loves her best.


End file.
